Landmark 
of 

Fraunces' 
Cavern 


Stony  Point  Battlefield. 


The  American 
Scenic  and  Historic  Preservation 
Society 

Incorpotated  1895. 


OFFICERS. 


President.  Hon.  ANDREW  H.  GREEN. 
214  Broadway,  New  York. 
Vice-President,  Hon.  CHARLES  S.  FRANCIS. 
Troy,  N.  Y. 

Treasurer,  EDWARD  PAYSON  CONE,  Esq., 
182  William  Street,  New  York. 
Counsel.  Col.  HENRY  W.  SACKETT. 
Tribune  Building.  New  York. 

TRUSTEES, 
the  foregoing,  and 
Hon.  HENRY  E.  HOWLAND.  New  York. 

FREDERICK  W.  DEVOE,  Esq.,  New  York. 

GEORGE  F.  KUNZ,  Esq.,  New  York. 
WALTER  S.  LOGAN,  Esq..  New  York. 

EDWARD  P.  HA  TCH.  Esq.,  New  York. 

FREDERICK  S.  LAMB,  Esq.,  New  York. 
Hon.  ROBERT  L-  FRYER.  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 

THOMAS  V.  WELCH,  Esq..  Niagara  Falls.  N.  Y. 

JOHN  HUDSON  PECK,  Esq..  Troy.  N.  Y. 
Hon.  HUGH  HASTINGS,  Albany,  N.  Y. 

THOS.  R.  PROCTOR,  Esq.,  Utica,  N.  Y. 

WILLIAM  H.  RUSSELL,  Esq.,  New  York. 
Hon.  WM.  VAN  VALKENBURG,  Bergenfield,  N.  J. 
CHARLES  F.  WING  A  TE.  Esq.,  New  York. 

RICHARD  T  DA  VIES,  Esq.,  New  York. 
Col.  ABRAHAM  G.  MILLS,  New  York. 

H.  K.  BUSH-BROWN,  Esq.,  New  York. 

EDWARD  T.  POTTER,  Esq.,  Newport.  R.  1. 
Hon.  GEORGE  W.  PERKINS,  New  York. 

FRANK  S.  WITHERBEE,  Esq..  New  York. 

Hon.  FRANCIS  C  LAN  DON,  New  York. 


Landscape  Architect,  SAMUEL  PARSONS.  Jr..  Esq.. 
St.  James  Building,  New  York. 
Secretary,  EDWARD  HAG  A  MAN  HALL.  Esq.. 
Tribune  Building,  New  York. 


For  Incorporators,  see  page  13- 
2 


The  Palisades  of  the  Hudson. 


THE  American  Scenic  and  Historic  Preser- 
vation Society  is  a  national  organization  of 
men  and  women,  animated  by  a  love  of  the 
beautiful  in  Art  and  Nature,  and  inspired  by 
public  spirit  and  pride  in  our  National  annals, 
associated  for  the  protection  of  beautiful 
American  scenery  and  the  preservation  of  no- 
table American  landmarks. 

Its  work  is:    (1)  preservative;  (2)  creative, 
aud  (3)  educational. 

(1.)  It  aims  to  protect  beautiful  features  of 
the  natural  landscape  from  disfigurement,  either 
f        by  physical  alterations  or  by  the 
The  Society's      erection  of  unsightly  structures ;  to 
Three-fold  Work  preserve  from    destruction  re- 
markable geological  formations  and  organic 
growths  possessing  an  artistic  or  scientific 
value;  and  to  save  from  obliteration  names, 
places  and  objects  identified  with  local,  state 
and  national  history.    In  this  branch  of  its 
work  it  is  empowered  to  receive  in  fee,  or  upon 
such  trusts  as  may  be  agreed  upon  between  the 
donors  and  the  Corporation,  real  or  personal 
property  possessing  picturesque  or  historic  in- 
terest and  to  administer  it  as  a  public  trustee, 


solely  for  the  public  use  and  benefit.  In  like 
manner  it  acts  for  state  or  municipal  govern- 
ments as  custodian  of  public  property  set  apart 
for  care  or  improvement  for  scenic  or  historic 
purposes. 

(2. )  It  endeavors  to  promote  the  beauti- 
fication  of  cities  and  villages  by  the  landscape 
adornment  of  their  open  spaces  and  thorough- 
fares; the  creation  of  new  parks,  where  neces- 
sary or  desirable,  for  the  health,  comfort  and 
recreation  of  the  people;  the  erection  of  suit- 
able historical  memorials  where  none  exist ; 
and  the  bestowal  of  significant  and  appropriate 
names  upon  new  thoroughfares,  bridges,  parks, 
reservoirs  and  buildings. 

(8.)  It  cultivates  by  free  lectures,  literature, 
correspondence  and  other  educational  means, 
popular  appreciation  of  the  scenic  beauties  of 
America  and  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  their 
preservation ;  and  it  promotes  interest  in  and 
respect  for  the  history  of  the  Country,  its 
honored  names  and  its  visible  memorials. 

It  is  the  first  Society  in  this  country  to  attempt 
upon  an  extensive  scale  to  merge  Art  and  His- 
torical culture  in  one  organization, 
Art  Culture  and  thereby  imparting  an  aesthetic  in- 
History  Com-       terest  *0  historical  work  and  mak. 

kinec**  ing  History,  in  turn,  the  hand- 

maiden of  Art.  It  is  the  ally  of  the  Artist,  the 
Scientist,  the  Historian  and  the  Teacher. 

In  pursuit  of  its  objects,  the  Society  recog- 
nizes the  valuable  work  done  by  cognate  or- 
ganizations and  stands  ready  to  co-operate  with, 
advise  and  otherwise  aid  them  in  the  further- 
ance of  undertakings  designed  for  the  public 
good. 

4 


Its  success  upon  these  lines  during  the  past  six 
years  and  the  increasing  demands  made  upon  it 
by  individuals,  societies  and  the  press  in  all 
parts  of  the  country  if  or  information  and  moral 
and  practical  support,  have  given  its  work  a 
National  scope  and  necessitated  the  establish- 
ment of  Headquarters  in  charge  of  a  permanent 
Secretary. 

The  Society  invites  to  membership  public- 
spirited  men  and  women  throughout  the  United 
States.    Any  person  may  become 
Membership  and  &  member^  after  application  to  or 
Privileges.  invitation  by  the  Board  of  Trus- 

tees, upon  election  and  the  payment  of  an  an- 
nual due  of  five  dollars;  a  Life  Member  by 
'  the  payment  of  $100  at  one  time,  and  a  Patron 
by  the  donation  of  personal  or  real  property  to 
value  of  $500. 

While  the  primary  object  of  the  Society  is  to 
benefit  the  public  at  large  rather  than  the  in- 
dividual members,  there  are,  nevertheless,  cer- 
tain distinct  privileges  of  membership,  such  as 
the  receipt  of  publications  and  tickets  to  lec- 
tures and  the  use  of  the  headquarters  as  a 
Bureau  of  Information.  Members  also  find 
their  efforts  for  local  projects  of  a  public  nature 
increased  in  effectiveness  by  their  association 
with  an  influential  body  of  advisers  and  co- 
laborers. 

In  the  State  of  New  York,  under  a  special 
act  of  whose  Legislature  the  Society  is  incor- 
porated, the  corporation  occupies 
A  Quasi-Official  a  quasi_official  position,  being  re- 
^*a*us*  quired  to  report  annually  to  the 

Legislature,  and  specially  privileged  to  report 
at  any  time,  by  bill  or  otherwise,  recommen- 


dations  concerning  the  objects  of  the  Society. 
Its  work  in  this  State  has  been  particularly 
effective,  and  it  hopes  to  secure  a  similar  status 
in  other  States. 

As  any  appropriations  of  public  moneys  placed 

at  the  disposal  of  the  Society,  like  that  of  $3,500 

for  the  rehabilitation  of  the  battle- 
Financial  fidd  of  Stony  Pojnt  on  the  Hudson 

Support.  River,  are  applied  exclusively  to 

the  specific  objects  for  which  they  are  made, 
the  Society  is  entirely  dependent  upon  its 
membership  dues  and  voluntary  contributions 
from  public-spirited  citizens  for  the  main- 
tenance of  its  general  work;  and  for  such 
financial  support  it  most  earnestly  appeals.  It 
also  invites  donations  of  books,  pamphlets, 
relics,  maps  and  photographs,  referring  to  Art, 
History  and  Scenery. 

A  disinterested  administration  of  the  affairs 
of  the  Society  is  ensured  by  the  restrictions  of 
its  charter,  which  forbids  any  member  to  have  a 
pecuniary  interest  in  its  operations  or  receive 
compensation  for  services.    (See  page  15.  ) 

The  Society  was  founded  by  its  President, 
the  Hon.  Andrew  H.  Green,  of  New  York. 

His  sagacious  foresight  and  in- 
The  Spirit  of  defatigable  civic  labors,  which 
the  Society.  have  earned  for  him  the  tit;e  of 

•'The  Father  of  Greater  New  York;"  the  im- 
press which  his  mind  has  made  upon  the  great 
park  system  of  the  Metropolis ;  the  creation  of 
the  State  Reservation  at  Niagara  Falls  with 
which  he  has  been  identified  for  16  years ;  and 
the  rescue  from  demolition  of  the  beautiful  City 
Hall  of  New  York;  are  but  a  few  evidences  of 
the  genius  which  has  presided  over  the  Society 


for  the  past  six  years,  and  which  has  imparted  its 
spirit  to  an  earnest  body  of  co-workers. 

The  limits  of  these  little  pages  will  permit 
only  the  briefest  intimation  of  a  few  of  the 
practical  achievements  of  the  Society. 

In  1897,  at  its  instance,  the  State  of  New 
York  purchased  33  acres  of  the  historic  Stony 
Point  Battlefield  on  the  Hudson 
The  Works  of    and  committed  it  to  the  custody  of 
the  Society.        this  Society|  and   in   19()0>  the 

State  placed  $3,500  at  its  disposal  for  the  re- 
habilitation of  the  property. 

In  1898  and  1900,  after  the  earnest  solicitation 
of  our  Society  and  other  agencies,  the  State 
purchased  about  35  acres  at  the  head  of  Lake 
"  George,  made  famous  by  events  during  the 
French-and-Indian  and  Revolutionary  Wars, 
and  selected  by  Cooper  as  the  principal  scene 
of  his  romantic  novel  "  The  Last  of  the  Mo- 
hicans." 

In  1900,  at  the  request  of  Governor  Roose- 
velt, a  Commission  from  the  Society  represented 
the  State  of  New  York  in  conjunction  with  a 
Commission  representing  the  State  of  New 
Jersey  and  secured  the  creation  of  the  present 
Interstate  Palisades  Park  Commission.  This 
it  accounts  one  of  its  most  notable  achieve- 
ments. In  1901  the  State  of  New  York  appro- 
priated $400,000  and  the  State  of  New  Jersey 
$50,000  for  the  preservation  of  the  Palisades. 

In  1900,  through  the  Society's  co-operation,  a 
philanthropic  woman  beautified  the  surround- 
ings of  the  ancient  church  in  Salem,  N.  Y. 

In  1901,  chiefly  through  the  intercession  of 
this  Society  and  its  Woman's  Auxiliary,  the 
purchase  by  the  City  of  New  York  of  the  beau- 


tit ul  colonial  mansion  occupied  by  Washington 
in  1776  was  secured. 

Fraunces'  Tavern,  Alexander  Hamilton's 
residence,  and  Edgar  Allan  Poe's  Cottage  in 


New  York;  Philipse  Manor  Hall  in  Vonkers; 

Sir  Wm.    Johnson's  mansion  in  Johnstown. 

N.  Y. ;  the  ruins  of  Forts  Crown  Point  and 

Ticonderoga;  and  Watkms  Glen  are  but  a  few 

similar  objects  of  its  solicitude. 

The  preservation  of  the  giant  sequoias  of 

California  and  the  prehistoric   ruins  in  New 
Mexico,  and  the  creation  of  an 
National  Interstate    Commission  to  con- 

Legislation.         sider  the  damage  done  by  the 

artificial  diversion  of  the  waters  of  the  Great 
Lakes,  illustrate  the  class  of  subjects  engaging 
the  Society's  interest  in  National  Legislation. 
As  an  instance  of  its  work  in  the  department 
of  Nomenclature,  may  be  cited  its 
Nomenclature      offer  of  pdzes  of  moneyi  books 
and  Information.  and  medals  for  the  bes't  nameS 
proposed  for  the  East  River  Bridges ;  and  its  use 
as  a  Bureau  of  Historical  Information  may  be 
illustrated  by  two  recent  requests — one  in  1900 
from  the  Comptroller  of  the  State  of  New  York 


8 


concerning  the  Battlefield  of  Lake  George ;  and 
one  in  1901  from  an  official  of  the  Village  of 
Fort  Lee,  N.  J.,  for  the  identification  of  the  site 
of  the  Revolutionary  Fort  from  which  the  Vil- 
lage derives  its  name. 

It  is  impossible  to  measure  the  influence  of 
the  Society  upon  public  sentiment,  but  the  fol- 
lowing quotations  may  serve  to  show  the  atti- 
tude of  the  leaders  of  modern  thought  and  cul- 
ture toward  its  work : 

President  Charles  W.  Eliot,  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, says:     "  I  am  entirely  in  sympathy 
with  your  general  object  of  sav- 
The  Voice  of       ing  0bjects  of  natural  beauty  and 
the  University,    scenes  of  historical  interest.'  The 
widespread  organization  of  such  societies  is  the 
best  means  I  know  for  accomplishing  the  objects 
you  have  in  view.     Women  as  well  as  men 
ought  to  be  made  members  of  them  and  local 
interests  and  affections  utilized  to  the  utmost." 


Washington's  Headquarters,  New  York  City. 


President  Arthur  T.  Hadley,  of  Yale  Univer- 
sity, says:  "  It  is  needless  for  me  to  say  that  I 
am  in  cordial  sympathy  with  everything  which 
is  expressed  in  your  letter.  We  can  all  of  us 
work  toward  the  creation  of  a  general .  public 

9 


sentiment  which  will  grow  better  as  time  goes 
on  and  which  will  aid  in  dealing  with  these 
things— a  sentiment  to  the  effect  that  things 
which  are  of  permanent  interest  and  value  to 
the  Nation  must  not  be  made  a  subject  of  pri- 
vate money-making." 

President  Seth  Low,  of  Columbia  University, 
says:  "The  object  (if  the  Society  commends 
itself  to  me  warmly.  It  is  easy  to  mar  the 
beauties  of  Nature  but  difficult  to  restore  them 
if  they  have  once  been  injured.  Our  ancient 
historic  "landmarks  also  ought  to  be  preserved 
whenever  possible.  The  New  World,  in  the 
historic  sense,  is  still  new;  but  our  national 
life  has  already  made  its  sacred  places,  and  it 
is  a  true  instinct  to  preserve  them,  wherever 
possible,  for  the  inspiration  that  they  hold.  I 
hope  that  the  efforts  of  your  Society  may  be 
crowned  with  conspicuous  success." 

Chancellor  H.  M.  MacCracken,  of  New  York 
University,  says:  "All  American  Universities, 
inasmuch  as  they  are  charged  with  the  highest 
responsibility  for  the  education  of  American 
youth,  must  welcome  the  existence  and  activ- 
ity of  the  American  Scenic  and  Historic 
Preservation  Society.  Scenic  and  historic 
places  and  objects  teach  patriotism  and  nourish 
moral  sentiments,  while  they  care  also  in 
some  measure  for  the  aesthetic  nature.  When 
once  established,  these  famous  places  be- 
come unsalaried  teachers.  They  never  die, 
never  ask  to  be  retired  on  pensions,  and  their 
voices  grow  stronger  and  more  convincing 
with  increased  age.  May  your  Society  be  pros- 
pered in  adding  to  the  roll  of  these  immortal 
teachers." 


10 


The  Right  Reverend,  the  Bishop  of  the  Pro- 
testant Episcopal  Diocese  of  New  York,  Henry 
C.  Potter,  says.   "No  citizen  of 
The  Voice  of      New  York  can  be  otherwise  than 

the  Church.  grateful  to  your  Society  for  your 
efforts  toward  the  preservation  from  defacement 
of  the  Palisades  and  other  natural  features  of 
scenery  in  the  State  of  New  York.  You  have 
behind  you  a  much  wider  and  more  earnest  con- 
stituency than  as  yet  you  realize ;  and  I  venture 
to  think  you  can  count  upon  their  enthusiastic 
co-operation  in  the  good  work  you  are  doing." 

His  Grace,  the  Archbishop  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  See  of  St.  Paul,  John  Ire^nd,  says: 
"  I  am  in  most  hearty  sympathy  with  you.  .  . 
I  think  a  society  ought  to  be  organized  for  the 
clear,  definite  purpose  of  preventing  all  such 
destructions  as  those  of  which  you  speak.  This 
Society  should  have  among  its  members  influ- 
ential men  throughout  the  whole  country,  and 
it  should,  through  its  secretary,  arouse  public 
opinion  by  publications  in  reviews  and  newspa- 
pers, and  it  should  batter  at  the  doors  of  Con- 
gress until  triumph  rewarded  its  efforts.  If  in 
any  special  way  such  Society  desires  my  co-op- 
eration, it  will  be  most  cheerfully  given." 

Paul  Dana,  Esq. ,  editor  of  the  New  York  Sun, 
says:    "If   there  is  an  organization  inspired 
wholly  by  public  spirit  and  that 
The  Voice  of    of  themost  enlightened  and  pre- 
the  Press.  cious  nature,  it  is  the  American 

Scenic  and  Historic  Preservation  Society.  Pray 
let  me  convey  to  you  my  earnest  wishes  for  its 
growth  in  the  public  estimation  and  for  its  suc- 
cess in  carrying  out  its  ideas." 

The  New  York  Times  says  editorially:  "  Of 

11 


all  the  societies  which  we  know  collectively  as 
the  patriotic  societies,  none  has  yet  undertaken 
with  quite  so  much  disinterested  enthusiasm 
and  intelligent  guidance  the  work  of  marking 
and  preserving  places  in  this  country  closely 
identified  with  historic  events.  Membership  is 
not  founded  upon  descent,  nor  have  efforts  been 
made  in  any  way  to  dignify  individual  mem- 
bers through  their  ancestors.  The  Society  is 
animated  by  a  very  distinct  public  spirit." 

The  New  York  T?'ib7ine,  speaking  editorially 
of  the  saving  of  the  Palisades  of  the  Hudson, 
says:  "Nor  should  the  Society  for  the  Preser- 
vation of  Scenic  and  Historic  Places  and  Objects 
be  overlooked  in  apportioning  the  praise.  Its 
help  was  given  at  a  time  when  general  public 
interest  had  declined  and  a  period  of  legislative 
indifference  had  begun.  Its  co-operation,  there- 
fore, at  the  suggestion  of  Governor  Roosevelt, 
was  especially  valuable,  and  perhaps,  indeed, 
essential  to  future  success." 

The  Outlook,  speaking  of  the  work  of  the 
Society  before  its  charter  powers  had  been  ex- 
tended, said:  "In  stimulating  popular  appre- 
ciation of  the  value  of  saving  things  for  their 
associations,  of  preserving  what  is  historic  and 
picturesque,  and  in  offering  a  trusteeship  for 
concentrating  effort,  whether  by  gifts  or  by  ap- 
peal to  State  intervention,  the  New  York  Soci- 
ety is  quietly  but  effectively  doing  a  work  that 
reaches  in  interest  far  beyond  State  bounds. 
It  needs  only  a  wider  knowledge  to  give  its 
work  a  national  character. 

The  Charter  of  the  Society,  originally  granted 
in  1895,  and  amended  in  1898  and  1901,  reads 
as  follows: 


12 


The  People  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
7'epresented  i?i  Seriate  a?nl  Assembly,  do 
enact  as  follows: 
§  1.    The   following   persons,  William  H. 
Webb*,  Samuel  D.  Babcock,  John  M.  Fran- 
cis*, Andrew  H.  Green,  Charles 
Charter  of  the    A    Dana*  Oswald  Ottendorfer* 
Society.  Chauncey   M.     Depew,  Horace 

Porter,  William  Allen  Butler,  Mornay  Wil- 
liams, George  G.  Haven,  Elbridge  T.  Gerry, 
Walter  S.  Logan,  Henry  E.  Hovvland,  Ed- 
ward P.  Hatch,  William  L.  Bull,  James  M.  Tay- 
lor, J.  Hampden  Robb,  Ebenezer  K.  Wright*, 
Alexander  E.  Orr,  William  M.  Evarts*,  Wager 
Swayne,  Charles  R.  Miller,  Frederick  W. 
Devoe,  Elbridge  G.  Spaulding*,  Frederick  S. 
Tallmadge,  Thomas  V.  Welch,  S.  Van  Rens- 
selaer Cruger*,  Frederick  J.  de  Peyster, 
Morgan  Dix,  John  A.  Stewart,  Charles  C.  Bea- 
man*,  Francis  Vinton  Greene,  Peter  A.  Porter, 
M.  D.  Raymond,  George  N.  Lawrence*,  Ben- 
jamin F.  Tracy,  Augustus  Frank,  Charles  Z. 
Lincoln,  John  Hudson  Peck,  Sherman  S. 
Rogers,  William  Hamilton  Harris,  Lewis  Cass 
Ledyard,  Alexander  B.  Crane,  John  Hodge, 
Robert  L.  Fryer,  J.  S.  T.  Stranahan*  Samuel 
Parsons,  Jr.,  Charles  A.  Hawley,  Henry  E. 
Gregory,  Frederick  D.  Tappen,  Henry  J.  Cook- 
ingham,  Henry  R.  Durfee,  H.  Walter  Webb*, 
and  such  others  as  shall  become  associated  with 
them  in  the  manner  and  upon  the  terms  and 
conditions  prescribed  by  the  by-laws  of  the  cor- 
poration hereby  created,  are  hereby  consti- 
tuted a  body  politic  and  corporate  by  the  name 
of  The  American  Scenic  and  Historic  Pres- 

*  Now  deceased. 


13 


ekvation  SOCIBI  v,  with  all  the  powers  and  sub- 
ject  to  the  provisions  of  the  eleventh  section  of 
chapter  thirty-five  of  the  general  corporation  law 
as  amended  hy  chapter  six  hundred  and  eighty- 
seven  of  the  laws  of  eighteen  hundred  and 
ninety-two,  except  as  otherwise  provided  by 
this  act,  and  shall  be  capable  of  purchasing, 
taking,  receiving  and  holding  by  gift,  grant, 
devise,  bequest,  or  otherwise,  in  trust  or  per- 
petuity, real  and  personal  estate  for  the  uses 
and  purposes  of  said  corporation,  the  value  of 
which  shall  not  exceed  one  million  dollars. 

?  2.  The  objects  of  said  corporation  shall  be 
to  acquire  by  purchase,  gift,  grant,  devise, 
or  bequest,  historic  objects  or  memorable  or 
picturesque  places  in  the  State  or  elsewhere 
in  the  United  States,  hold  real  and  per- 
sonal property  in  fee  or  upon  such  lawful 
trusts  as  may  be  agreed  upon  between  the 
donors  thereof  and  said  corporation,  and  to  im- 
prove the  same;  admission  to  which  shall  be 
free  to  the  public  under  such  rules  for  the  proper 
protection  thereof  as  said  corporation  may  pre- 
scribe, and  which  said  property  shall  be  exempt 
from  taxation,  within  the  State  of  New  York. 

8.  The  affairs  and  business  of  said  corpora- 
tion shall.be  conducted  by  a  board  of  not  less 
than  five  nor  more  than  thirty-rive  Trustees,  a 
quorum  of  whom  for  the  transaction  of  business 
shall  be  fixed  by  the  by-laws.  The  persons 
now  constituting  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  said 
corporation  shall  continue  to  hold  office  until 
others  are  elected  in  their  stead,  as  provided  by 
the  said  by-laws.  Vacancies  in  the  Board  of 
Trustees  may  be  filled  in  the  manner  prescribed 
by  the  said  by-laws. 


14 


?:  4.  None  of  the  Trustees  or  members  of  said 
corporation  shall  receive  any  compensation  for 
services,  or  be  pecuniarily  interested  directly  or 
indirectly  in  any  contract  relating  to  the  affairs 
of  said  corporation,  nor  shall  said  corporation 
make  any  dividend  or  division  of  its  property 
among  its  members,  managers  or  officers. 

§  5.  The  Board  of  Trustees  shall  annually,  at 
a  time  to  be  fixed  by  the  by-laws,  elect  or  ap- 
point from  their  number  the  following  officers: 
a  President,  four  Vice-Presidents,  and  Treas- 
urer, who  shall  hold  office  for  one  year  and  until 
their  respective  successors  are  elected  or  ap- 
pointed, and  shall  perform  such  duties  as  are 
provided  by  the  by-laws.  The  Board  of  Trus- 
tees may  also  appoint  a  Secretary  and  define 
his  duties,  and  shall  have  the  power  to  manage, 
transact,  and  conduct  all  business  of  the  cor- 
poration, to  prescribe  the  terms  of  admission 
of  its  members,  and  to  appoint  and  fix  the  com- 
pensation of,  and  remove  its  employes  at  pleas- 
ure. The  said  coiporation  shall  have  no  capital 
stock,  and  shall  have  no  power  to  sell,  mortgage, 
or  otherwise  encumber  any  of  its  property. 

6.  Said  corporation  shall  annually  make  to 
the  Legislature  a  statement  of  its  affairs,  and 
from  time  to  time  report  to  the  Legislature,  by 
bill  or  otherwise,  such  recommendations  as  are 
pertinent  to  the  objects  for  which  it  was  cre- 
ated, and  may  act  jointly  or  otherwise  with  any 
persons  appointed  by  any  other  State  for  simi- 
lar purposes  as  those  intended  to  be  accom- 
plished by  this  act,  whenever  the  object  to  be 
secured  or  purpose  sought  to  be  accomplished 
is  within  the  jurisdiction  of  this  and  any  other 
State,  or  can  only  be  attained  by  such  joint 
action. 

7.  This  act  shall  take  effect  immediately. 


15 


Avery  Architectural  and  Fine  Arts  Library 
Gift  of  Seymour  B.  Durst  Old  York  Library 


Fraunces'  Tavern  as  it  is  to-day. 


The  Landmark  of  Fraunces' Tavern 


A  RETROSPECT 


READ  DECEMBER  4,  1900,  IN  THE  LONG  ROOM  OF  THE  TAVERN,  ON  THE 
ONE  HUNDRED  AND  SEVENTEENTH  ANNIVERSARY  OF 
THE  FAMOUS  "  FAREWELL"  OF  1783 

AT  THE 

FIRST  PATRIOTIC  REUNION 

OF  THE 

Women's  Auxiliary 

to  the  Society  for  the  Preservation  of  Scenic  and 
Historic  Places  and  Objects— (now  the 
American  Scenic  and  Historic 
Preservation  Society) 

BY 

MRS.  MELUSINA  FAY  PEIRCE 

PRESIDENT  OF  THE  AUXILIARY 


HON.  ANDREW  H.  GREEN,  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  PARENT 
SOCIETY,  presiding 


f>rintet>  fot  Distribution  bs  tbc  TKflomen'0  BuxtUane 
(Sccono  fi&ition) 


A\ 
Hi 


Copyright,  1901, 
by 

Melusina  Fay  Peirce. 


Proposed  Restoration  of  Fraunces'  Tavern,  as  sketched 
by  The  Brooklyn  Eagle  Art  Department. 


OFFICERS 


OF  THE  WOMEN'S  AUXILIARY 


TO  APRIL,  ipoi. 


President,  Mrs.  Fay  Peirce, 

462  Lexington  Ave.,  New  York. 
Vice-President,  Mrs.  William  Brookfield, 

51G  Madison  Ave.,  New  York. 
Recording  Secretary,  Mrs.  Edward  Emerson  Watkrs, 

108  West  43d  St..  New  York. 
Corresponding  Secretary,        Mrs.  Virgil  P.  Humason, 

574  Palisade  Ave.,  Yonkers,  N.  Y. 
Treasurer,  Mrs.  James  E.  Pope, 

73  Prospect  St.,  East  Orange,  N.  J. 
Auditor,  Mrs.  John  C.  Marin, 

Hotel  Beresford,  New  York. 


EXECUTIVE  BOARD. 

Miss  Vanderpoel,  Mrs.  Stephen  V.  White, 

Mrs.  James  W.  Henning,  Mrs.  Washington  A.  Roebling, 

Mrs.  H.  L.  G.  Deas,  Mrs.  Wm.  Tod  Helmuth, 

Mrs.  Frank  C.  Loveland,  Mrs.  John  Francis  Bitter, 

Mrs.  C.  Vanderbilt  Cross,  Mrs.  Emil  L.  Boas. 

Mrs.  Orange  Ferriss. 


ADVISORY  BOARD. 

Mrs.  Robert  Hoe, 
Mrs.  Charles  R.  Flint, 
Mrs.  F.  H.  Bosworth, 
Miss  Julia  Chester  Wells. 


To 

THE  NEW  YORK  CHAMBER  OF  COMMERCE 


— in  hope  of  enlisting  its  active  iuterest  for  the  immedi- 
ate rescue  of  its  long  lowly,  but  ever  illustrious 
birthplace — the  following  "Retrospect" 
concerning  that  birthplace  is 
respectfully  dedicated  by 

THE  WOMEN'S  AUXILIARY 

TO  THE 

Society  for  the  Preservation  of  Scenic  and 
Historic  Places  and  Objects. 


w 


E 

Map  of  the  Proposed  Small  Park  for  Preserving 
Fr amices1  Tavern. 


THE  LANDMARK  OF  FRAUNCES'  TAVERN 


A  RETROSPECT 

Mr.  President,  Gentlemen  and  Ladies  : 

The  sketch  I  read  you  is  based  upon  a  brief  but 
interesting  account  of  Fraunces'  Tavern  written 
in  1894  by  Mrs.  Morris  P.  Ferris,  Secretary  of 
the  Daughters  of  the  Cincinnati,  which  I  have 
greatly  enlarged  by  gleanings  from  the  valuable 
"Half  Moon  Papers"  upon  Historic  New  York  as 
edited  by  Mrs.  Robert  Abbe,  President  of  the 
City  History  Club,  and  from  "The  Goede  Vrouw 
of  Man-a-ha-ta,"  by  Mrs.  John  King  Van  Kens- 
salaer,  and  from  two  articles  in  Scribner's  Maga- 
zine for  1876  by  the  late  John  Miner  (Felix  Old- 
boy),  entitled  "New  York  in  the  Revolution." — 
I  tell  you  the  tale  as  by  these  authorities,  chiefly, 
it  was  told  to  me.* 

*  As  printed,  the  paper  is  a  "composite"  from  two  read- 
ings of  it  by  the  writer  ;  one  as  stated  on  the  title  page, 
and  a  second  before  the  Society  for  the  Preservation  of 
Scenic  and  Historic  Places  and  Objects,  at  its  meeting  on  the 
evening  of  December  21,  1900. 

The  map  on  the  opposite  page  was  prepared  for  President 
Andrew  H.  Green  of  the  Parent  Society,  by  Lonis  A.  Kisse, 
Esq.,  Chief  Topographical  Engineer  of  the  Board  of  Public 
Improvements,  City  of  New  York.  No  illustration  is  given 
of  Fraunces'  Tavern  as  it  really  was,  because  no  known  pic- 
ture of  it  in  the  eighteenth  century  exists. 


Some  Landmarks  of  the  Revolution. 

In  the  three  colonial  cities  which  played  leading 
roles  in  the  struggle  for  American  Independence, 
namely,  Boston,  New  York  and  Philadelphia, 
exist  to  our  own  day  buildings  so  identified  with 
that  struggle  that  they  deserve  to  be  preserved 
to  all  time  as  among  its  priceless  landmarks.  In 
Boston,  such  landmarks  are  Faneuil  Hall  and 
the  Old  South  Church;  in  Philadelphia  they  are 
Independence  Hall  and  the  Betsy  Boss  Cottage 
wherein  was  made  the  first  American  flag;  and 
in  New  York  we  have  three — the  Morris  Man- 
sion, in  Harlem,  associated  with  George  Wash- 
ington the  General;  St.  Paul's  Church,  on 
Broadway,  associated  with  George  Washington 
the  President;  and  Fraunces1  Tavern,  on  the  cor- 
ner of  Broad  and  Pearl  streets,  associated  (as 
I  think  we  ought  to  feel)  with  George  Washing- 
ton the  Christian. 

Faneuil  Hall,  the  so-called  Cradle  of  Liberty, 
is  and  always  has  been  safe  to  stand  while 
Boston  stands.  Twenty-five  years  ago  the  Old 
South  Church  on  costly  Washington  street  was 
rescued  from  destruction  by  the  herculean  ef- 
fort of  united  Boston  womanhood.  Very  lately 
the  patriotic  men  and  women  of  Philadelphia 
have  restored  their  sturdy  Independence  Hall 
as  it  was  in  Independence  days  down  to  the 
minutest  details,  and  the  little  "Flag  House," 
on  Arch  street,  is  being  bought  by  ten-cent  sub- 
scriptions from  all  over  the  country.   St.  Paul's 

8 


Church,  on  Broadway,  whither  Washington 
went  to  worship  immediately  after  his  inaugura- 
tion as  President,  and  where  he  had  a  pew  dur- 
ing his  presidential  residence  in  New  York,  under 
the  aegis  of  the  great  endowment  of  Trinity 
parish,  is  equally  safe  from  the  tooth  of  time 
and  the  maw  of  commerce.  The  Morris  Mansion 
which  was  Washington's  headquarters  in  Sep- 
tember, 177G — this  beautiful  colonial  home,  with 
the  sloping  lawn  about  it,  through  the  persever- 
ing entreaties  of  our  own  joint  Societies  and 
other  patriotic  bodies,  is  soon  to  be  taken  into  the 
New  York  system  of  small  parks  and  will  con- 
tinue to  dominate  the  landscape  in  the  future 
as  it  has  done  in  the  past.  But  what  about 
Fraunces'  Tavern — the  third  of  New  York's  re- 
maining landmarks  of  the  American  Revolution? 

Fraunces1  Tavern  to-day,  and  the  Plan  to  save  It. 

In  the  American  schools  of  fifty  or  sixty  years 
ago  the  pupils  were  all  taught  that  at  the  close 
of  the  War  for  Independence,  the  great  and  only 
Washington — the  triumphant  leader  of  the 
American  armies — just  before  resigning  his  com- 
mission as  Commander-in-Chief  to  the  Congress 
at  Annapolis,  bade  farewell  to  the  generals  and 
aides  of  those  armies  in  the  "Long  Room"  of 
Fraunces'  Tavern,  New  York.  In  many  a  childish 
mind,  therefore,  this  tavern  remained  marked 
with  a  "big,  big  T,"  and  great  was  the  surprise 

9 


and  pleasure  of  the  writer  in  learning  one  day 
in  the  "eighties"  that  it  was  still  standing. 

During  the  mayoralty  of  the  noble  and  en- 
lightened Mr.  Hewitt,  and  owing  to  his  influence, 
a  law  had  been  passed  obliging  the  then  New 
York  to  spend  a  million  dollars  a  year  in  play- 
grounds and  small  parks.  It  was  after  the  enact- 
ment of  this  law  that  the  writer  first  made  her 
way  to  the  famous  building,  and  the  actual  vision 
of  it  as  the  shabby  old  corner  number  in  a  shabby 
old  five-story  block — no  outline  of  its  original 
shape  discernible — its  once  tap-room  lowered  to 
the  sidewalk  level  and  serving  as  a  common  sa- 
loon— the  sacred  Long  Room  on  the  second  floor 
transformed  by  the  removal  of  a  partition  from 
a  shut-in  parallelogram  to  an  open  L,  used  as 
a  cheap  restaurant  for  foreign  men  of  foreign 
tongue  and  otherwise  bitterly  changed  and  dis- 
figured— this  sad  and  sordid  and  disgraceful 
sight  brought  at  once  the  thought  that  the  very 
first  small  park  to  be  created  under  the  Hewitt 
law  ought  to  be  the  small,  the  very  small  block 
on  which  Fraunces'  Tavern  stands ;  that  of  its  old 
buildings  only  the  tavern  should  be  left;  that 
the  latter  should  be  restored  as  nearly  as  possi- 
ble to  what  it  was  in  Washington's  day;  that 
portraits  of  the  heroes  who  met  in  farewell  in 
the  Long  Room  should  be  placed  in  that  room 
and  the  rest  of  the  building  reserved  as  a 
Revolutionary  and  Colonial  Museum;  that 
revolutionary  cannon  should  be  placed  in  the 

10 


proposed  small  park  with  two  United  States 
soldiers  in  Continental  uniform  to  mount 
guard  there  daily,  and  that  the  school 
children  of  New  York  should  be  taken  thither 
once  each  in  their  school  lives  as  the  children 
in  Boston  are  taken  to  the  Old  South  Church, 
then  and  there  to  be  told  the  history  of  the  tav- 
ern as  the  most  vivid  object  lesson  in  American 
patriotism  that  could  be  devised. 

The  formidable  obstacle  in  the  way  of  this 
plan  is,  of  course  the  great  cost  of  the  land  on 
Broad  street ;  nevertheless,  at  a  tea  given  in  the 
Long  Room  of  the  tavern  in  1894  by  the  New 
York  City  Chapter,  D.  A.  R.,  the  audacious 
scheme  was  unfolded  and  much  Chapter  en- 
thusiasm was  aroused.  Nothing  came  of  it, 
however,  until  an  officer  of  that  Chapter  who 
was  present,  Miss  Mary  Van  Buren  Vander- 
poel,  was  made  by  her  D.  A.  R.  friends  the  Re- 
gent of  the  Mary  Washington  Colonial  Chap- 
ter of  New  York,  organized  in  1896.  She, 
true  "Daughter"  of  the  American  Revolution 
that  she  is,  remembered  Fraunces'  Tavern  and 
appointed  a  Standing  Committee  in  her  Chap- 
ter to  agitate  for  its  preservation.  The  commit- 
tee adopted  the  small  park  proposition  as  its 
own,  and  from  May,  1897,  to  January,  1900, 
it  knocked  at  one  influential  door  after  another, 
hoping  to  secure  powerful  backing  before  ven- 
turing to  appeal  for  the  plan  to  the  City  authori- 
ties— but  knocked  in  vain ! 

li 


A  Saviour  far  th?  Tavern, 

in  January,  1900,  made  desperate  by  a  report 
that  the  tavern  was  soon  to  be  lorn  down  to 
make  way  for  a  sky-scraper,  the  distinguished 
Founder  and  President  of  the  Society  for  the 
Preservation  of  Scenic  and  Historic  Places  and 
Objects — the  Hon.  Andrew  EL  Green,  eminent 
citizen  of  large  horizons,  noble  aims  and  monu- 
mental achievements — was  appealed  to  to  take 
the  lead  in  saving  Framices'  Tavern.  President 
Green  inclined  a  sympathetic  ear;  further  nego- 
tiation between  himself  and  the  Fraunces  Tavern 
Committee  of  the  Mary  Washington  Colonial 
Chapter  resulted,  the  Trustees  of  his  Society  con- 
senting:— first,  in  the  expansion  of  the  Com- 
mittee into  the  first  organized  "Auxiliary"  of  a 
Society  designed  and  destined  to  become  Na- 
tional; second,  in  the  recognition  in  the  Report 
for  1900  of  that  Society  to  the  Legislature  at 
Albany,  of  the  aspiration  and  organization  of 
"public-spirited  women"  in  behalf  of  Fraunces' 
Tavern. 

It  may  be  objected : — "Why  go  to  the  great 
expense  of  a  small  park  on  Broad  street?  Why 
not  simply  save  and  restore  the  tavern  itself?" 

We  answer: — First,  because  the  owner  of  the 
tavern  positively  refuses  to  sell  it,  and  the  only 
way  to  get  it  is  through  condemnation  of  the 
block  by  the  city  or  State  for  park  purposes;  sec- 
ond, because  Broad  street  is  destined  to  become 
an  avenue  of  brobdingnagian  business  buildings, 

12 


and  how  would  an  old  three-story,  hip-roofed 
relic  look  if  surrounded  by  arrogant  modern 
sky-scrapers? — whereas,  established  and  re- 
stored upon  a  greensward  of  its  own,  with  the 
open  land  already  at  the  east  of  the  block  thrown 
into  it  (this  same  land  being  itself  a  portion 
of  the  very  earliest  settled  in  the  city),  modern 
New  York  would  possess  a  reminder  of  her 
American  past  not  only  deeply  interesting  as 
such,  but  potently  inspiring  also  toward  an 
equally  American  future. 

Do  some  still  sigh  and  say:  "If  only  it  were 
not  a  tavern !  If  the  'Farewell'  had  only  taken 
place  in  some  higher  type  of  dwelling!  How 
difficult  to  associate  sentiment  with  a  public 
tavern !" 

But  why  not  a  "tavern?"  The  splendid  bay 
of  New  York,  as  the  chief  port  of  entry  between 
the  Old  World  and  the  New,  marked  out  the  City 
of  New  York  as  a,  predestined  queen  of  com- 
merce. Where  there  is  commerce,  there  also  is 
travel  and  also,  of  first  necessity,  the  house  of 
public  entertainment.  From  its  foundation  until 
now  New  York  has  been  perforce  the  special  town 
of  inns,  taverns,  coffee-houses,  restaurants  and 
hotels.  Nay,  the  original  City  Hall  or  "Stadt 
Huys"  of  New  Amsterdam,  whose  site  was  but 
diagonally  across  the  way  from  that  of  our  land- 
mark, was  first  built  for  and  used  as,  a  tav- 
ern! So  far,  therefore,  from  ignoring  Fraunees' 
Tavern  for  being  a  tavern,  New  York  should  all 

13 


the  more,  and  in  sheer  self-respect  as  a  great 
trading  city,  restore  and  cherish  this  long  mal- 
treated witness  to  a  unique  and  immortal  event. 

Even  aside  from  its  one  supreme  memory,  of 
all  buildings  of  the  colonial  period  in  New  York, 
I  think  none — save  the  beautiful  City  (later  Fed- 
eral) Hall  on  whose  balcony  Washington  was  in- 
augurated and  which  New  York  so  inexcusably 
suffered  to  be  demolished — so  worthy  of  tender 
and  loving  preservation  as  this  same  neglected 
inn. 

For  the  life-thread  of  its  site  runs  brightly 
back  almost  to  the  beginnings  of  the  city,  and  the 
experience  of  its  walls  has  struck  almost  every 
tone  in  the  wide  gamut  of  the  city's  social,  com- 
mercial, civic  and  political  career. 

Its  Earh/  Owners. 
Among  the  founders  of  the  colony  were  Cap- 
tain Oloff  StephanusVan  Cortlandt  and  his  wife, 
Ann  Lockermans.  The  good  man  established  a 
home  and  a  large  brewery  in  Brouwer  street, 
where  the  dust  raised  by  his  great  wagons  so 
vexed  the  neat  housewifery  of  his  "goede  vrouw" 
that  she  begged  him  to  lay  a  stone  pavement 
before  their  property.  This  being  done,  people 
came  to  look  at  it  as  a  curiosity  and  renamed 
the  little  street  "Stone  Street,"* — so  remaining 
to  this  day,  and  thus  commemorating  the  fact 
that  to  Madam  Van  Cortlandt  the  first,  a  "mere 
woman,"  New  York  owed  its  first  stone  pave- 
ment. 

♦Now  the  southern  boundary  of  the  Produce  Exchange. 

14 


Their  son,  Colonel  Stephen  Van  Cortlandt,  as 
he  came  to  be,  put  up  a  cottage  not  far  off,  on 
the  corner  of  Broad  and  Dock,  later  Queen  and 
now  Pearl  street,  and  hither  brought  his  bride, 
Gertrude  Schuyler,  in  1671.  In  1700,  perhaps 
because  he  wished  to  end  his  days  as  "Lord"  of 
his  vast  Van  Cortlandt  Manor  on  the  Hudson, 
he  deeded  this  then  but  village  property*  to  his 
son-in-law,  Etienne  or  Stephen  De  Lancey,  a 
French  Huguenot  nobleman  and  an  enterprising 
merchant.  Perhaps  the  two  owned  together  a 
warehouse  on  the  wet  dock  back  of  the  cottage, 
for  what  is  "Water  street"  now  was  real  water 
then,  and  two  great  sea  basins  had  been  enclosed 
there  for  the  better  loading  and  unloading  of  ves- 
sels. 

If  the  De  Lancey  pair  kept  house  in  the  pater- 
nal cottage  it  was  not  for  long,  for  early  in  the 
century  the  able  Huguenot  built  upon  its  site  a 
hip-roofed  mansion  of  several  stories,  which 
ranked  in  size  and  importance  with  any  at  that 
period  in  the  colony.  It  was  constructed  of 
small  yellow  bricks  brought  from  Holland,  and 
was  probably  roofed  with  tiles  of  Dutch  make 
also.  Beneath  its  gable  front  and  five  windows 
on  Dock  street  was  the  main  doorway,  and  doubt- 
less it  boasted  a  back  veranda  overlooking  the 
shipping  of  the  sparkling  bay.  I  like  to  fancy  it, 
not  square,  as  it  seems  to  be  to-day,  but  with  the 


*In  1700  New  York  counted  but  4,400  population. 

15 


usual  L  and  outbuildings  stretching  amply  be- 
hind to  a  warehouse  on  the  docli  full  of  the  De 
Lancey  importations— with  box-bordered  flower 
beds  and  beds  of  vegetables  at  the  side,  and  as 
years  went  on,  with  pleasant  trees  grown  to  the 
height  Of  the  red  roof,  Which;  after  the  colonial 
fashion,  certainly  oughl  to  have  been  and  prob- 
ably was,  broken  by  dormer  windows  and  sur- 
rounded by  a  balusl  rade. 

A  Home  of  Colonial  Fashion. 

Colonist  Stephen  De  Lancey  proved  a  model 
citizen  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  Strenuous  and 
successful  in  business,  he  devoutly  upheld  re- 
ligion both  in  the  French  Huguenol  and  English 
Trinity  churches,  and  was  equally  earnest  and 
faithful  in  filling  public  office.  In  evidence  of  his 
public  spirit,  we  may  mention  his  turning  over 
the  check  of  £50  which  he  had  received  as  assem- 
blyman, as  purchase  money  for  a  cupola  with 
clock  and  four  large  dials  for  the  new  City  Hall 
on  Wall  street  at  the  head  of  Broad.  He  and  his 
wife  naturally  became  prominent  among  the 
financial  and  social  leaders  of  New  York,  and  it 
is  said  that  no  hostess  was  more  hospitable,  gra- 
cious or  popular  than  Madam  Stephen  De  Lan- 
cey. 

Her  house,  like  the  surface  of  a  fan  to  its 
pivot,  was  central  to  almost  every  person  and 
interest  of  importance  in  the  compact  little 
place.    The  White  Hall  or  Government  House, 

16 


the    Fort,    the    Barracks,    the    Battery  and 
the  Bowling  Green  were  close  on  the  left;  at 
the  rear  were  the  two  ship  basins  with  the 
Royal  Exchange  and  the  Exchange  Coffee  House 
between  them;  diagonally  across  Broad  street 
was  the  favorite  King's  Arms  tavern,  and  a 
few  blocks  above  was  the  home  of  the  social 
magnate,  Mrs.  James  Alexander,  who  as  the 
Widow   Provoost  had  been  the  first  person 
in  New  York  to  lay  down  a  sidewalk.  Her 
Broad  street  warehouses  being  somewhat  aside 
from  the  stream  of  traffic,  she  shrewdly  placed 
a  pavement  in  front  of  them  and  also  for  a 
little  way  up  and  down  an  adjoining  street, 
so  that  customers  might  be  attracted  to  her 
through   relief   from   the  all-prevailing  mud. 
On  the   neighboring  William  street  were  the 
Dutch  Church  and  the  aristocratic  Black  Horse 
Tavern,  while  on  the  northeastward  curve  up  the 
Island  were  the  old  "Stadt  Huys,"  with  ware- 
houses and  shops  and  markets  and  wharves, 
and  the  Long  Island  Ferry.    On  Wall  street,  at 
the  top  of  Broad,  was  the  new  City  Hall,  in  whose 
vicinity  the  English,  the  French  and  the  Second 
Dutch  churches  had  reared  their  spires  and  their 
worshippers  had  planted  their  homes. 

What  was  the  internal  arrangement  of  Madam 
de  Lancey's  most  accessible  mansion  we  can  only 
surmise;  but  if  its  five  tiny-paned  windows  on 
Broad  street  meant  on  either  floor  one  large 
drawing  room  or  two  lesser  ones  opening  into 

17 


each  other,  the  farthingales  of  the  belles  and  the 
dress-swords  of  the  military  beaux  had  therein 
ample  room  both  for  the  sweeping  bows  and  cour- 
tesies of  the  Stately  minuet  and  for  the  jolly  all- 
hands-round  of  the  livelier  measures.  II  is  said 
that  "dances  generally  began  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  and  for  young  people  to  be  abroad  at  a 
private  party  after  nine  o'clock  was  an  excep- 
tion at  which  society  frowned." 

One  wedding  may  have  been  celebrated  within 
this  drawing  room  as  "awfully  swell"  in  its  day 
as  some  of  the  international  nuptials  of  our  own 
— being  nothing  less  than  the  marriage  of  Mrs. 
Stephen's  youthful  daughter,  Miss  Susannah  De 
Lancey,  to  a  naval  officer  whose  epitaph  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  written  by  the  renowned  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson,  records  him  as  having  been 
Knight  of  the  Bath,  Vice- Admiral  of  the  Bed 
Squadron  of  the  British  Fleet,  and  member  of 
Parliament  for  the  City  and  Liberty  of  Westmin- 
ster— and  furthermore,  that  he  came  from  "an 
antient  Irish  family."  As  a  dashing  young  cap- 
tain, this  Sir  Peter  Warren  had  been  left  in  com- 
mand of  a  squadron  of  sixteen  sail  on  the  Lee- 
ward Islands,  and  in  less  than  four  months  he 
had  taken  twenty-four  prizes,  one  of  them  a 
plate-ship  valued  at  the  then  enormous  sum  of  a 
quarter  million  pounds. 

Bringing  these  prizes  to  New  York  to  be  con- 
demned, Messieurs  Stephen  de  Lancey  &  Co. 
became  his  agents  for  the  sale  of  his  French 

18 


and  Spanish  loot.  The  brilliant  captor  was 
himself  soon  captured  by  Stephen's  charm- 
ing daughter,  and  she  in  turn  surrendering, — 
instead  of  setting  sail  at  once  with  his  bride 
for  the  other  side  as  do  our  modern  trans-oceanic 
lovers,  the  gallant  bridegroom  purchased  an  es- 
tate of  three  hundred  acres  along  the  Hud- 
son in  what  became  the  hamlet  of  Greenwich, 
only  three  miles  away,  laid  out  a  park  in  the 
English  manner,  and  made  the  ideal  spot, 
then  the  most  beautiful  on  Manhattan  Island, 
his  home  until  his  election  to  Parliament  some 
years  after.  The  family  then  removed  to  Eng- 
land and  Lady  Warren  never  returned  to  her 
native  land.  Her  daughters  grew  up  beauties, 
and  being  heiresses  besides,  made  brilliant  mar- 
riages— one  becoming  Countess  of  Abingdon,  an- 
other Lady  Fitzroy,  Baroness  of  Southampton, 
and  the  third  Mrs.  Colonel  Skinner.  As  the  city 
extended,  streets  were  cut  through  Sir  Peter's 
estate  and  named  respectively  Warren,  Abing- 
don, Fitzroy  and  Skinner  streets,  though  of  these 
only  Warren  street  and  Abingdon  Square  re- 
main as  echoes  faint  and  far  of  Susannah  De 
Lancey's— Lady  Warren's — high  colonial  pres- 
tige. 

A  General  Store. 

Stephen  De  Lancey's  early  home  descended 
through  his  son  James  (a  colonial  Judge  and 
Acting-Governor  whose  delightful  Broadway  res- 

19 


idence  was  also  IraiH  by  Stephen),  to  his  grand- 
BOD  Oliver.  The  latter,  too  aristocratic  to  live  in 
what  had  now  become  a  business  neighborhood, 
leased  it  to  a  partner  in  the  firm,  Colonel  Jos- 
eph Robinson,  and  when  the  latter  died,  in  1757, 
"De  Lancey,  Robinson  &  Co."  announced  that 
they  had  "moved  their  store  into  Colonel  Robin- 
son's late  dwelling  next  to  the  Royal  Exchange, 
"and  should  there  continue  to  sell  all  sorts  of 
"European  and  East  India  goods— shoes,  shirts, 
"white  and  checked,  for  the  army,  with  a  variety 
"of  other  goods."  The  firm  continued  their  busi- 
ness here  until  1701,  but  on  January  15th,  1702, 
the  roomy  mansion  passed  by  deed  into  the  pos- 
session of  the  favorite  Boniface  of  the  day— of 
that  "Samuel  Fraunces"  with  whose  patriotic 
name  it  was  to  become  so  imperishably  asso- 
ciated. 

Enter  "Sam"  Fraunces. 
This  new  owner  was  a  West  Indian,  and 
though,  from  the  swarthiness  of  his  complexion, 
commonlv  called  "Black  Sam,"  he  was  of  French 
extraction.  Swinging  out  an  effigy  of  Queen 
Charlotte  he  named  his  inn  the  Queen's  Head— 
probably  as  being  appropriate  to  its  location  on 
Queen  street— and  announced  that  "dinner 
would  be  served  daily  at  half-past  one"— doubt- 
less the  then  fashionable  limit.  For  three  years 
he  remained  head  of  the  Queen's  Head,  and  then, 
being  a  restless  and  enterprising  genius,  he  leased 
it  to  one  John  Jones,  in  order  himself  to  take 

20 


charge  of  the  popular  Vauxhall  Gardens  on  the 
Hudson,  south  of  Sir  Peter  Warren's  place.  Here 
he  opened  a  museum  of  wax  figures  and  other 
curiosities,  and  served  hot  rolls,  meat,  sausages, 
tea,  coffee  and  other  drinkables  to  the  citizens 
with  their  wives  and  to  the  beaux  with  the 
belles  who  drove  out  there,  mostly  in  chaises,  on 
pleasant  afternoons. 

After  a  year  John  Jones  resigned  the  Queen's 
Head  to  Bolton  &  Sigel,  who  advertised  ''din- 
ners and  public  entertainments  at  the  shortest 
notice,  jellies  in  the  greatest  perfection,  and  rich 
and  plain  cakes  sold  by  the  weight."  They  as- 
sured "gentlemen"  that  they  might  "depend  upon 
receiving  the  best  of  usage,"  and  doubtless  as  a 
bait  to  the  late-rising  officers  at  the  barracks 
nearby,  promised  "breakfast  in  readiness  from 
9  to  11  o'clock." 

It  was  during  their  occupancy  that  the  New 
York  Chamber  of  Commerce,  to-day  the  most 
potent  body  of  men  on  the  western  hemisphere, 
was  organized  in  April,  1768,  in  the  "Long 
Room"  of  the  Queen's  Head,  with  twenty-four 
importers  for  members,  and  John  Cruger  for 
president.  For  the  accommodation  of  banquets, 
balls,  citizens'  meetings  and  social  clubs  gener- 
ally, all  important  taverns  had  their  "long 
rooms" — so-called  in  imitation  of  the  Indian 
usage  which  named  the  large  lodge  in  each  vil- 
lage in  which  were  held  the  tribal  councils  and 
feasts,  the  "Long  Room." 

21 


In  1769,  of  the  two  hosts  of  the  Queen's  Head 
we  find  Richard  Bolton  alone  soliciting  the  favor 
of  (he  public,  but  in  1770  Sam  Fraunces  went 
back  to  his  own  again,  and  inaugurated  at  the 
Queen's  Head  the  brilliant  regime  which  marked, 
him  to  all  time  as  the  pioneer  and  peer  of  a 
unique  and  important  type  in  our  American  civi- 
lization— the  affable,  executive,  money-making, 
yet  manly  and  patriotic  American  Hotel-keeper. 

The  acknowledged  cordon  hi  en  in  cookery  and 
the  first  connoisseur  in  wines  of  his  little  city,  in 
his  newspaper  announcement  the  owner  of  the 
property  "flatters  himself  that  the  public  are  so 
well  satisfied  of  his  ability  to  serve  them,  as 
to  render  the  swelling  of  an  advertisement  use- 
less." He  merely  states,  therefore,  that  "the 
Queen's  Head  is  now  fitting  up  in  the  most  gen- 
teel and  convenient  manner  for  the  reception  and 
entertainment  of  those  gentlemen,  ladies  and 
others  who  may  favor  him  with  their  company," 
and  that  he  "will  serve  dinners  and  suppers  not 
only  to  lodgers,  but  to  those  who  live  at  a  con- 
venient distance."  Nor  is  he  devoted  to  supply- 
ing creature  comforts  alone.  He  also  opens  his 
Long  Room  to  what  he  calls  "the  Polite  and 
Rational  Amusement  of  Philosophical  Lectures 
on  the  Nature,  Use  and  Effects  of  the  Air,  tickets 
for  which  are  on  sale  both  at  the  Queen's  Head 
and  the  publisher's." 

A  Hotbed  of  Rebellion. 

The  so-called  Social  Club  met  here  every  Sat- 
urday night  to  praise  Black  Sam's  cider,  madeira, 

22 


old  port,  spirits,  ales  and  punches,  and  we  may 
be  sure  that  besides  their  drinking,  card-play- 
ing and  gossip  they  argued  mightily  together 
over  the  burning  manhood  question  of  the  day — 
the  question  of  Taxation  without  Representation. 
In  the  club  were  many  loyalists,  but  patriots 
like  John  Jay,  Gouverneur  Morris,  Morgan 
Lewis,  Robert  Livingston,  Samuel  Verplanck, 
and  others,  were  also  members — and  from  these 
daring  and  dauntless  thinkers  Sam  Fraunces 
perhaps  imbibed  his  own  ardent  Americanism. 
As  the  troubles  between  king  and  colonies  waxed 
more  and  more  angrily  to  a  head,  his  tavern  be- 
came the  head-quarters  of  rebellion  against  the 
crown  and  a  favorite  meeting-place  of  the  active 
malcontents.  The  blood  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty 
of  New  York  had  been  shed  by  the  British  sol- 
diers two  months  before  the  Boston  massacre 
which  so  infuriated  New  England,  and  when 
united  Boston  ventured  her  great  Tea  Party  in 
December,  1773,  the  Sons  of  Liberty  followed 
suit  the  next  April  with  a  New  York  little  one. 

Hearing  that  a  ship  was  in  port  having  on 
board  eighteen  chests  of  the  hated  commodity, 
the  Sons  met  "at  Sam  Fraunces'  Tavern/'  and 
from  thence  went  straight  to  the  offending  ves- 
sel. In  open  daylight  they  seized  and  threw  the 
tea  into  the  bay,  and  bade  the  captain  recross 
the  Atlantic  without  delay.  He  obediently 
hoisted  sail  so  to  do,  and  while  he  dropped  down 
the  Narrows,  they  made  all  speed  to  their  Liberty 
Pole  on  the  Commons— the  fourth  they  had 

23 


raised  there  in  defiance  of  I  he  Bang's  I  roops — ran 
their  flag  to  its  top,  and  from  their  cannon  at 
its  foot  roared  out  a  salute  over  the  poor 
captain's  discomfiture  and  their  own  patriotic 
daring. 

In  177."),  die  famous  "Committee  of  Correspon- 
dence" between  the  colonics  met  for  organization 
at  "Praiinces'."  The  same  year  a  party  of  King's 
College  students,  led  by  Alexander  Hamilton,, 
weni  by  night  with  some  rebel  soldiers  to  1  he  Bat- 
tery, near  Bowling  <lreen,  secured  the  guns  and 
ammunition  of  the  grand  battery  connected  with 
the  fort  there,  and  fired  on  a  government  barge 
that  was  watching  them.  His  Majesty's  ship 
Asia,  which  was  anchored  in  the  bay,  at  once 
replied  with  a  broadside  aimed,  to  the  honor  of 
Sam  Fraunces  be  it  said,  at  the  Queen's  Head  as 
the  special  gathering  place  of  the  rebels.  An 
eighteen-pound  ball  pierced  its  roof  and  another 
struck  close  by, — the  former  being  treasured  and 
shown  with  pride  in  the  tavern  as  late  as  1894  as 
one  of  the  only  two  hostile  shot  that  had  ever 
touched  New  York ! 

After  driving  the  British  out  of  Boston  in 
1776,  Washington  hastened  to  New  York  in  hope 
of  preventing  Lord  Howe  and  his  30,000  on-com- 
ing troops  from  occupying  it.  In  various  head- 
quarters, among  them  the  Queen's  Head,  Rich- 
mond Hill,  and  the  Morris  (later  the  Jumel) 
mansion,  he  remained  on  Manhattan  Island  for 
many  anxious  months,  during  which,  though  no 

24 


rich  loyalists  were  despoiled  by  the  needy  colo- 
nials, he  himself  came  near  losing  his  life.  A  Brit- 
ish deserter  named  Hickey  was  one  of  his  body- 
guard, and  had  made  himself  a  favorite  at  the 
Richmond  Hill  headquarters,  where  Sam  Fraun- 
ces' daughter,  Phcebe,  was  in  charge  of  the  house- 
keeping. Hickey  was  in  a  plot  with  the  tory 
major,  Matthews,  and  the  royalist  governor, 
Tryon,  to  poison  Washington,  but  being  desper- 
ately in  love  with  Phcebe  Fraunces,  and  perhaps 
needing  her  connivance,  he  revealed  to  her  his 
awful  scheme.  She  promptly  told  her  father. 
Hickey  was  arrested,  and  confessing  his  guilt,  he 
was  hanged  at  the  corner  of  Grand  and  Christie 
streets  in  presence  of  20,000  people.  For  this 
measureless  service  should  not  true  Phoebe  some 
day  have  a  tablet  on  the  wall  of  her  father's 
tavern? 

That  father  was  now  enrolled  as  a  private 
in  Colonel  Malcolm's  regiment,  one  of  the  sixteen 
commanded  by  Washington  himself,  and  when 
those  untrained,  un-uniformed  and  half-armed 
troops,  in  spite  of  Washington's  passionate  ap- 
peal to  them  to  "conquer  or  die" — after  a  first 
reverse  on  Long  Island  and  then  a  second  at 
what  is  now  the  Thirty-fourth  Street  Ferry — 
rushed  from  the  pursuing  red-coats  up  the  leafy 
lanes  of  Manhattan  Island  to  Harlem,  the  patriot 
Fraunces  fled,  too,  with  General  Putnam's  di- 
vision. Throughout  the  Revolution  the  Queen's 
Head,  doubtless  to  the  joy  of  its  now  intensely 

25 


torv  ex  ow  ner,  Oliver  De  Lancey — was  occupied 
by  British  officers, nor  did  Sam  Fraunces  venture 
to  return  to  his  own  inn  again  until  seven  long 
years  ]i;i<1  rolled  by,  and  the  British  were  about 
to  evacuate  New  York. 

Evacuation  Day. 

Oh,  what  a  delirious  day  of  ecstatic  triumph 
to  patriotic  New  Yorkers  was  that  sunny  Tues- 
day, the  25th  of  November,  1783,  which  saw  the 
burnished  and  scarlet-coated  soldiers  of  King 
George  of  England  tramp  sullenly  along  the  Bos- 
ton Road  and  Broadway  to  their  boats,  while  the 
exultant  "continentals/'  in  their  "ragged  regi- 
mentals," were  marching  joyously  down  from  the 
north  into  the  little  war-worn  city  whose  com- 
merce was  gone,  its  trees  cut  down  for  fire-wood, 
its  homes  and  churches  desecrated,  and  one- 
eighth  of  its  buildings  long  since  destroyed  by 
fire.  And  of  all  those  wildly  throbbing  hearts 
surely  none  could  have  been  more  bursting  with 
love,  joy  and  pride  than  that  of  Sam  Fraunces; 
for  where  was  the  adored  Washington  to  put 
up  for  the  night  but  at  the  Queen's  Head,  and 
who  was  in  charge  of  the  grand  banquet  to  be 
given  there  by  Governor  Clinton  to  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief and  the  French  Ambassador 
Luzerne,  after  the  triumphal  entry,  but  Black 
Sam  himself,  the  Delmonico  of  his  day,  and 
who,  of  course,  could  not  have  been  with  his  regi- 

26 


ment  during  the  entry,  because  he  must  have 
been  rushing  the  arrangements  for  the  occasion 
which  was  the  grand  climax  of  his  life!  Can 
we  not  fancy  the  viands  he  prepared,  the  punch 
he  brewed,  the  vintages  he  selected,  and  then 
see  him  stand  behind  Washington's  chair  watch- 
ing how  he  was  served  and  allowing  no  one  but 
himself  to  keep  the  chief's  wine  glasses  replen- 
ished? More  than  a  hundred  generals,  officers 
and  distinguished  civilians  sat  down  to  table  in 
the  Long  Room  with  Governor  Clinton  and  his 
guests  of  honor, — an  observer  noting  that  Wash- 
ington "looked  considerably  worn-out,  but  hap- 
py,"— and  after  the  banquet  thirteen  toasts 
were  given,  the  first  being,  "The  United 
States  of  America,"  the  thirteenth,  "May  This 
Day  be  a  Lesson  to  Princes  !" 

In  the  evening  the  Queen's  Head,  with  the 
whole  city,  was  brightly  illuminated.  Bonfires 
blazed  at  every  corner,  and  as  their  contribution 
to  the  general  joy,  Washington  and  the  French 
Ambassador  superintended  a  ,  display  of  fire 
works  on  the  near-by  Bowling  Green. 

The  "Farewell" 

From  the  date  of  the  Evacuation  the  "Queen's 
Head"  on  Queen  street  becomes  "Fraunces'  Tav- 
ern" on  Pearl  street,  and  it  was  ten  days  after 
this  that  within  its  walls,  on  Thursday,  De- 
cember 4, 1783,  Washington  and  his  generals  and 
aides  met  for  the  last  time  as  fellow-soldiers  in 

27 


the  Revolutionary  Army.  To  the  deeply  Chris 
tian  Washington,  war  was  but  a  means  to  an 
end.  lie  had  accepted  the  supreme  command  not 
in  order  to  "be  greatest"  among  his  American 
brethren,  but  to  help  them  achieve  American  In- 
dependence. The  stupendous  undertaking  ac- 
complished, he  was  now  going  before  Congress 
to  surrender  his  coin  mission  and  return  to  what 
he  held  as  infinitely  nobler  and  greater  than  the 
art  of  war — to  the  beautiful  and  beneficent  art 
of  agriculture;  for  Washington,  be  it  remem- 
bered, while  the  greatest  general,  was  also  the 
most  skillful,  scientific  and  extensive  farmer  of 
his  time1 — his  very  name,  "George,"  in  fact,  sig- 
nifying "a  husbandman !" 

No  complete  list  is  extant  as  to  who  were 
present  at  the  memorable  Farewell,  but  it  is 
believed  that  they  numbered  forty-four,  among 
them  being  the  famous  Generals  Greene,  Knox, 
Wayne,  Steuben,  Carroll,  Lincoln,  Kosciusko, 
Moultrie,  Gates,  Lee,  Putnam,  Stark,  Hamilton, 
Governor  Clinton,  Colonels  Tallmadge,  Hum- 
phreys, Fish,  and  twenty-seven  others. 

The  "Long  Room"  is  on  the  second  story  of  the 
tavern.  Its  measure  was  thirty-eight  by  nineteen 
feet — five  windows  on  Broad  and  two  on  Pearl 
street,  and  as  so  grand  a  banquet  had  recently 
taken  place  there,  I  think  we  may  surmise  it 
to  have  been  comfortably  curtained  and  perhaps 
carpeted.  Being  December,  and  the  snow  prob- 
ably deep  on  the  ground,  a  great  wood  fire  must 

28 


have  been  blazing  on  the  hearth,  and  to  complete 
the  picture  we  must  see  at  the  top  of  the  room  a 
table  with  decanters  and  many  wine  glasses. 

It  is  said  that  Washington  rode  on  horseback 
to  the  tavern,  where  were  gathered  in  the  street 
many  veterans  of  his  armies,  and  Colonel  Tall- 
madge,  one  of  his  favorite  aides,  thus  describes 
what  followed : 

"We  had  been  assembled  but  a  few  minutes 
when  his  Excellency  entered  the  room.  His  emo- 
tion, too  strong  to  be  concealed,  seemed  to  be  re- 
ciprocated by  every  officer  present.  After  par- 
taking of  a  slight  refreshment  amid  almost 
breathless  silence,  the  General  filled  his  glass 
with  wine  and  turning  to  his  officers  said :  'With 
a  heart  full  of  love  and  gratitude  I  must  now 
take  my  leave  of  you.  I  most  devoutly  wish  that 
your  latter  days  may  be  as  prosperous  and  happy 
as  your  former  ones  have  been  glorious  and 
honorable.'  After  the  officers  had  taken  a  glass 
of  wine,  the  General  added :  'J  cannot  come  to 
each  of  you  to  take  my  leave,*  but  shall  be 
obliged  to  you  if  each  will  come  and  take  me  by 
the  hand.' 

"General  Knox,  being  nearest  to  him,  turned 
to  the  Commander-in-Chief,  who,  suffused  in 
tears,  was  incapable  of  utterance,  but  grasped 
his  hand,  when  they  embraced  each  other  in  si- 
lence.   In  the  same  affectionate  manner  every 


♦Military  etiquette  forbade  this,  as  he  was  still  their 
superior  officer. 


officer  in  the  room  marched  up  to,  kissed  and 
parted  with  his  General-in-Chief.  Such  a  scene 
of  sorrow  and  weeping  I  had  never  before  wit- 
nessed, and  hope  I  may  never  be  called  upon  to 
witness  again.  Not  a  word  was  uttered  to  break 
the  solemn  silence  (hat  prevailed,  or  to  interrupt 
the  tenderness  of  the  occasion.  The  simple 
thought  that  we  were  about  to  part  forever  from 
the  man  who  had  led  us  through  a  long  and 
bloody  war,  and  under  whose  conduct  the  glory 
and  independence  of  our  country  had  been 
achieved,  and  that  we  should  see  his  face  no  more 
in  this  world,  seemed  to  me  insupportable.  But 
the  time  of  separation  hud  come,  and  waving  his 
hand  to  his  grieving  children  around  him,  he 
left  the  room,  and  passing  through  a  corps  of 
light  infantry  who  were  paraded  to  receive  him, 
he  walked  silently  on  to  Whitehall  Ferry,  where 
a  barge  was  in  waiting.  We  all  followed  in 
mournful  silence  to  the  wharf,  where  a  pro- 
digious crowd  had  assembled  to  witness  the  de- 
parture of  the  man  who,  under  God,  had  been  the 
great  instrument  of  establishing  the  glory  and 
independence  of  these  United  States.  As  soon 
as  he  was  seated,  the  barge  put  off  in  the  river, 
and  when  out  in  the  stream  our  great  and  be- 
loved General  waved  his  hat  and  bade  us  a  silent 
adieu." 

"Happy  as  was  the  occasion,"  wrote  an  officer 
afterward;  "prayed  for  as  it  had  been  by  him 
and  all  patriots,  that  we  might  at  last  feel  there 

30 


was  no  enemy  left  in  America,  the  triumph 
brought  with  it  its  sorrows,  and  I  could  hardly 
speak  when  I  turned  from  taking  my  last  look  of 
him.  It  was  extremely  affecting,  and  I  do  not 
think  there  were  ever  so  many  broken  hearts  in 
New  York  as  there  were  that  night !" 

Thus  did  Washington,  with  his  matchless 
sense  of  the  real  relations,  and  hence  of  the  true 
fitness  of  things,  exquisitely  and  poetically  close 
the  world-drama  of  the  American  Revolution  and 
unconsciously  lift  the  small  and  plain  "Long 
Room"  of  Fraunces'  Tavern  into  the  shining 
galaxy  of  eternally  venerable  and  memorable 
places;  and  as  after  a  tremendous  tempest  the 
ocean  in  a  soft  ripple  kisses  a  good-night  to  the 
sands  which  but  lately  saw  it  sweeping  in  awful 
and  resistless  grandeur, — so  in  that  silent  good- 
bye kiss  to  each  fellow  officer,  did  this  mighty 
nature  dismiss  what  President  McKinley  has 
admirably  called  its  uvast  and  varied"  powers 
back  to  their  hidden  depths,  then  tranquilly 
subside  to  its  former  quiet  guise  of  Virginia  citi- 
zen and  gentleman. 

To  the  nation  the  thrilling  value  of  old  Fraun- 
ces' Tavern  consists  in  the  facts  that  at  one  and 
the  same  hour  were  assembled  within  its  prin- 
cipal room  nearly  all  of  the  greatest  military 
leaders  of  the  American  Revolution;  that  their 
meeting  there  was  the  last  scene  of  that  Revo- 
lution; and  that  Washington  then  and  there 
founded  the  American  principle  of  rotation  in 

31 


office  by  practically  divesting  himself  in  their 
presence  of  his  super-eminent  distinction  of 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  American  Armies 
— an  example  which  lie  was  to  repeat  and  re- 
inforce in  later  years  by  refusing  a  third  nomi- 
nation to  the  Presidency.  The  very  life  of  the 
Republic  is  bound  up  in  this  principle.  It  was 
new  to  human  annals  as  to  human  nature,  and 
it  was  one,  though  but  one,  of  Washington's  ex- 
traordinary contributions  to  ;i  higher  ideal  of 
Christian,  because  self-effacing,  statesmanship 
than  ever  had  been  reached  before. 

Regarding  this  "Farewell,"  an  enthusiast  of 
more  than  thirty  ye  ns  ago  declared  that  no 
monument  to  Washington's  glory  in  the  city  of 
New  York  could  equal  the  historic  witness  of 
Fraunces'  Tavern,  and  that  no  lesson  in  the  past 
could  so  abash  and  convert  a  demagogue  of  the 
future  as  the  mere  entrance  into  its  Long  Room. 
"Let  the  tavern,"  he  exclaimed,  "be  forever  pre- 
served as  the  Mecca  of  American  Patriotism !" 
♦  #*♦*** 

Washington  at  last  had  really  left  the  small 
seaport  on  the  lordly  bay  about  which,  as  "the 
storm-center  of  the  Revolution,"  he  had  pa- 
tiently hovered  on  north,  on  west,  or  on  south, 
through  good  and  through  evil  fortune,  for  more 
than  seven  long,  arduous,  home-sick  years — hav- 
ing only  once  in  all  those  years  revisited  his  be- 
loved Mount  Vernon.  Little  did  he  dream  in  1783, 
as  he  went  on  foot  to  sl  New  York  ferry  amid  silent 

32 


and  sorrowing  followers,  that  in  less  than  seven 
years  he  should  walk  from  a  New  York  ferry 
amid  cheering  and  exulting  crowds  as  the  unani- 
mously elected  First  President  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  come  to  take  in  hand  the 
helm  of  state  and  start  the  noble  ship  across  the 
vast  unknown  sea  of  Christian  Democracy.  He 
had  consented  to  take  the  presidency  only  on  the 
same  terms  as  he  had  the  generalship  of  the  army 
— namely,  that  he  should  be  reimbursed  for  his 
living  expenses  while  in  office,  but  not  for  his 
services. 

To  this  fact  we  doubtless  owe  the  last  appear- 
ance of  Sam  Fraunces  on  the  historic  page. 

Exit  "Sam"  Fraunces. 

After  the  Evacuation,  though  his  tavern  con- 
tinued in  foremost  favor  and  was  the  scene  of  va- 
rious banquets  and  festivities  in  honor  of  the 
infant  Republic  which  had  come  to  take  its  place 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  in  1785  its  ener- 
getic but  changeable  owner  sold  it,  and  in  1789, 
as  the  person  best  fitted  for  the  office,  he  was 
made  the  steward  of  Washington's  presidential 
household.  One  day  he  placed  before  the  Chief 
a  fine  shad  from  the  first  catch  of  the  season.  The 
latter  inquired  the  price.  "Three  dollars,"  re- 
plied the  steward.  "Take  it  away!"  returned 
Washington,  scandalized;  "it  shall  never  be 
said  that  the  President  indulges  in  luxuries 
so  expensive  as  this."     Yet  it  is  on  record 

33 


that  through  this  same  Steward  Fraunces  the 
President's  (able  was  supplied  with  madeira, 
claret,  champagne,  sherry,  arrack,  spirits, 
brandy,  cordials,  porter,  beer  and  cider. 
"Other  times,  other  manners."  Thongh  himself 
the  most  temperate  of  men,  the  universal  drink- 
ing and  toasting  of  Washington's  day  made  these 
among  the  necessities  of  a  high-class  household, 
and  therefore  permissible  to  be  paid  for  out  of 
the  public  money;  an  "early"  shad  was  not. 

Fhai  ncks'  Tavkkn  has  never  lost  the  name  of 
its  patriotic  owner,  and  from  the  day  when  he 
first  swung  out  its  first  sign,  one  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  years  ago,  down  to  our  own,  it  has 
been  open  continuously  as  a  house  of  public 
entertainment — facts,  in  the  universal  transfor- 
mation of  old  New  York  which  has  taken  place 
all  about  it,  hardly  less  remarkable  than  the 
more  brilliant  points  of  its  exceptional  story. 
For  half  a  century  after  the  Revolution  it  held 
its  own  among  the  best  caravanseries  of  the  town, 
and  after  the  great  New  York  fire  of  1835  it  was 
leased  by  a  popular  hotel-keeper,  Mr.  John  Gard- 
ner, who  had  been  burned  out.  His  nephew7,  the 
Hon.  Asa  Bird  Gardiner,  was  born  there,  and  an 
elderly  gentleman  remembers  being  taken  there 
as  a  child  to  see  Fanny  Ellsler  dance  in  the  Long 
Room  before  a  fashionable  company.  Since  the 
fifties,  however,  the  tavern  has  dropped  from 
one  unkindly  level  to  another,  until  now  it  is  the 
pitiful  and  painful  tragedy  that  we  see. 

34 


Closi  ng  Con  si  tier  a  lions. 

Since  the  passage  of  the  small  park  law  of 
New  York,  millions  have  been  spent  to  open 
"breathing  places"  for  the  people — their  cost  va- 
rying from  a  quarter  of  a  million  to  a  million  and 
a  quarter  of  dollars  each — and  in  the  case  of  the 
last  opened,  the  Hamilton  Fish  Park  on  Houston 
street,  to  over  three  millions  of  dollars*;  but 
hardly  one  has  been  chosen  with  regard  to  New 
York  or  American  history.  Certainly  no  one  has 
thought  of  Fraunces'  Tavern — and  yet,  as  was 
said  in  the  last  annual  report  of  the  Scenic  Pre- 
servation Society  with  reference  to  the  Morris 
Mansion — "Preserved  for  a  historic  memorial, 
even  as  a  teacher  it  would  be  worth  a  hundred 
thousand  times  its  cost  in  dollars  and  cents." 

Strange  that  the  intimate  claims  of  Fraunces' 
Tavern  upon  the  tenderness  and  gratitude  of 
New  York  seem  to  have  been  forgotten  by  the 
two  important  families  whose  first  homestead 
it  was!  Strange  that  the  tavern  seems  forgot- 
ten by  the  great  importers  of  New  York,  an  emi- 
nent firm  of  whose  predecessors  once  kept  gen- 
eral store  within  it!  Strange  that  it  seems  for- 
gotten by  the  patriotic  company  of  American 
hotel-keepers,  the  leading  forerunner  of  whom 
was  the  genial,  the  popular,  the  liberty-loving 
Sam  Faunces !   Strange  that  it  is  ignored  by  the 

*So  stated,  August  23,  1900,  in  the  Chicago  Record,  by  its 
famous  staff  correspondent,  "William  E.  Curtis  (the  figures 
being  $3, 045, 464). 

35 


mighty  giant  whose  birth-cradle  it  was — by  that 
Chamber  of  Commerce  the  enterprises  of  whose 
fifteen  hundred  millionaires  girdle  and  network 
the  globe,  and  who,  in  the  human  sense,  have  but 
to  speak  and  it  is  done!  Strange,  above  all,  that 
it  seems  forgotten  by  the  Army  of  the  United 
States,  though  the  creator  and  first  commander 
of  that  army,  having  served  his  country  without 
pay,  in  the  presence  of  weeping  generals  therein 
laid  on  the  altar  of  that  country  his  high  and 
coveted  distinction  !  But,  oh  !  amid  so  much  that 
she  forgets,  not  strange  that  it  should  be  forgot- 
ten by  the  now  almost  wholly  un-American — by 
the  almost  wholly  foreign — City  of  New  York! 

To  the  patriotic  heart,  the  shades  of  the  sturdy 
and  opulent  Colonel  Stephen  Van  Cortlandt,  of 
Van  Cortlandt  Manor,  and  of  his  wife,  Gertrude 
Schuyler,  whose  bridal  cottage  was  on  this  site 
— demand  that  Americans  unite  to  save  Fraunces' 
Tavern.  Still  more  insistently  do  the  memories 
of  their  daughter  Ann  Van  Cortlandt  and  her 
noble  Huguenot  husband,  Etienne  or  Stephen 
De  Lancey,  who  built  Fraunces'  Tavern  as  her 
ample  home,  demand  it.  Their  daughter,  Susan- 
nah De  Lancey,  Lady  Warren,  who  was  mar- 
ried here,  sighs  to  us  for  it.  Faithful,  ardent, 
devoted  Black  Sam  and  the  loyal  maidr:\, 
Phoebe  Fraunces,  beg  us  for  it.  The  memories 
of  John  Jay,  of  Gouverneur  Morris,  of  Robert 
Livingston  and  the  friends  of  the  Social  Club — 
those  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty  and  of  the  Founders 

36 


of  the  Chamber  of  Coniiiierce — look  to  us  for  it ; 
and  last  in  our  minds,  but  foremost  in  our  love, 
the  thought  of  Washington  and  of  the  Brothers- 
in-Arms  who  suffered  and  fought  with  Washing- 
ton to  free  the  country  which  we  now  bless  and 
magnify  as  "our"  country,  and  who  met  to  part 
forever  on  earth  within  this  building, — all,  each, 
and  every  one,  from  the  earliest  dweller  on  this 
corner  to  the  day  of  the  sad,  sweet  and  immortal 
"Farewell"  plead — beg — implore — that  we  save 
and  restore  Fraunces'  Tavern  to  the  homage  and 
tenderness  of  all  Americans  who  honor  their  an- 
cestors and  who  love  the  Free  Institutions  which 
they  established. 

One  last  illustrious  memory  for  the  Long 
Room  steals  forth  from  the  shadows  to  show  the 
historic  tavern  retiring  from  the  historic  scene 
with  greater  dignity  than  its  namesake  master — 
with  dignity,  indeed,  worthy  of  its  previous  lofty 
record.  On  February  2nd,  1790,  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  was  opened  in  the  city 
of  New  York  "in  the  presence  of  national  and  city 
dignitaries,  of  many  gentlemen  of  the  bar,  mem- 
bers of  Congress,  and  a  number  of  leading  citi- 
zens. In  the  evening,"  continues  the  chronicler, 
"the  Grand  Jury  of  the  United  States  for  the  Dis- 
trict gave  a  very  elegant  entertainment  in  honor 
of  the  Court  at  Fraunces'  Tavern  on  Broad  street. 
The  liberality  displayed  on  this  occasion,  and  the 
good  order  and  harmony  which  prevailed,  gave 
particular  satisfaction  to  the  respectable  guests;" 

37 


the  "respectable"  (colonial  for  "respected") 
guests  being  John  Jay  of  New  York,  Chief  Justice, 
with  Justices  John  Rutledge  of  South  Carolina, 
William  Gushing  of  Massachusetts,  James  Wil- 
son of  Pennsylvania,  Robert  Han  i  son  of  Mary- 
land, and  John  Blair  of  Virginia — four  of  them 
under  fifty  years  of  age,  the  Chief  Justice  but 
.  forty-two  and  the  youngest  of  the  six.  Thus  the 
Bar  and  the  Bench  of  the  United  States,  along 
with  the  Army,  its  Captains  of  Commerce  and  ils 
Social  Leaders,  should  be  interested  in  the  res- 
toration and  preservation  of  this  ancient  inn, — 
once  so  central  to  the  national  life — so  central 
still  to  the  vast  circumference  of  Greater  New 
York. 

Not  another  twelve  months  should  be  lost. 
Vandalism  against  the  building  and  against  the 
Long  Boom  is  reckless.  Even  within  two  years 
the  latter  has  been  needlessly  and  brutally  dis- 
figured by  a  staircase  projected  into  the  south 
end  of  the  room  like  a  huge  closet.  The  tra- 
ditional cannon-ball  that  pierced  the  roof  in  1775, 
and  the  traditional  round  table  upon  which  were 
the  decanters  and  the  glasses  of  the  "Farewell," 
have  both  disappeared  since  1894.  At  any  time 
the  venerable  building  itself,  standing  now  since 
1710,  may  be  torn  down ! 

Patriotic  womanhood  may  plead,  but  patriotic 
manhood  must  save  this  tavern  if  saved  it 
is  to  be !  Will  not  the  great  New  York  Chamber 
of  Commerce  Itself  meet  and  memorialize  the 


city  and  State  authorities  regarding  its  birth- 
place? Land  and  all,  it  can  hardly  cost  more 
than  the  last  opened  "breathing-place"  for  the 
people — and  for  a  breathing-place  for  the  peo- 
ple's soul  shall  we  not  devote  at  least  as  much  as 
was  cheerfully  lavished  on  the  Hamilton  Fish 
Park?  For  we  declare  that  within  the  Memorial 
Room  of  this  building  every  United  States  citizen 
might  reverently  stand,  and  as  he  looked  round 
upon  the  silent  portraits  of  the  Hero-Founders 
who,  as  living  men,  once  stood  there  before  him, 
in  the  spirit  and  in  the  parting  words  of  the 
greatest  of  them,  he  might  proudly  echo  for 
himself  also— "the  name  of  AMERICAN!"* 

Alas!  alas!  from  Maine  to  California,  Ameri- 
can councils  and  legislatures  are  ever  frowning 
and  frightened,  deaf  and  niggard,  toward  any 
appeal  which  has  for  its  sole  motive  Beauty 
and  Sentiment!  Yet  beauty  and  sentiment  feed 
and  vivify  the  soul  as  food  and  fresh  air  the  body, 
and  the  spiritual  part  of  us  must  have  them  or  it 
must  die.  Human  nature  in  this  vast  New  York 
is  starving,  dwindling  and  degenerating  for  lack 
of  these  vital  elements  of  its  higher  nourishment 
and  growth.  Where,  if  not  here,  shall  we  begin 
to  end  this  famine,  and  when,  if  not  now? 

Oh,  by  every  deep  and  fond  and  faithful  fibre 
of  the  human  heart,  let  the  potencies  and  powers 
of  this  wide  land,  social  and  commercial,  civic 
and  military,  state  and  national,  combine  in  one 

*Waskington's  Farewell  Address,  paragraph  10. 

39 


irresisl ible  weight  of  public  opinion  to  save 
Frounces*  Tavern;  and  when  it  is  saved,  lei  us 
place  in  the  Long  Room,  beneath  a  replica  of  i  ha1 
wonderful  Life-mask  of  Washington  taken  but  not 
followed  by  the  French  sculptor,  Houdon,  the 
outburst  of  the  youthful  Abraham  Lincoln  in 
1842,  as  voicing  the  conviction  of  all  those  who 
adequately  love  and  reverence  the  "Father"  of 
their  country — the  ne  phis  ultra  of  human  man- 
hood so  far  as  that  manhood  has  yet  been 
evolved : 

44  WASHINGTON'S  is  the  mightiest  name  of 
earth, — long  since  mightiest  in  the  cause  of  civil 
liberty;  still  mightiest  in  moral  reformation.  On 
that  name  no  eulogy  is  expected.  It  cannot  be. 
To  add  brightness  to  the  sun,  or  glorj'  to  the  name 
of  Washington  is  alike  impossible.  Let  none  at- 
tempt it.  In  solemn  awe  pronounce  the  name, 
and  in  its  naked,  deathless  splendor  leave  it  shin- 
ing on!" 


40 


PETITION 


OF  THE 

MEMBERS  of  the  WOMEN'S  AUXILIARY 
To 

The  Honorable  Legislative  Bodies  and 
Committees,  and  to  the  Executive  Au- 
thorities and  Determining  Boards  of 
the  City  and  State  of  New  York. 

Whereas:  Love  and  honor  of  parents  and  ancestors  are  among 
the  fundamental  duties  of  mankind  ;  and 

Whereas:  General  George  Washington  made  his  headquarters 
in  1776  on  Manhattan  Island — the  '  •  storm-center  of  the  Revolu- 
tion ;  "  hovered  continually  about  the  city  of  New  York  during 
the  war,  was  here  inaiigurated  first  President  of  the  United  States 
in  1789,  and  here  lived  as  such  until  1791 ;  and 

Whereas:  Washington's  Headquarters  in  1776  were  in  the 
beautiful  Morris  (later  Jumel)  Mansion,  and  in  1783  he  parted 
from  the  Officers  of  the  American  Army  in  Fraunces'  Tavern, 
both  of  which  buildings  are  yet  standing ;  and 

Whereas :  The  tiny  Cottage  which  sheltered  the  famous  poet 
Edgar  Allen  Poe  during  the  last  years  of  his  life  is  also  still 
standing  on  Fordham  Hill ;  and 

Whereas:  Since  1887  many  small  parks,  some  of  them  cost- 
ing over  a  million,  and  one  of  them  over  three  million  dollars, 
have  been  created  throughout  the  city,  and  sixteen  others  are  now 
petitioned  for,  hardly  one  of  which  has  been  chosen  with  a  view 
to  its  historic  or  other  American  associations ;  while  the  recent 
creation,  at  an  expense  of  $8,000,000,  of  a  speedway  for  fast 
trotting,  the  authorization  of  a  Rapid  Transit  Tunnel  which  will 
cost  $35,000,000,  the  condemnation  of  property  in  the  Borough 
of  the  Bronx  for  a  Concourse  which  will  cost  $20,000,000,  and 
the  recommendation  of  the  Governor  of  the  State  of  New  York 
for  the  expenditure  of  $60,000,000  on  the  Erie  Canal,  prove  the 
resources  of  the  City  and  State  of  New  York  for  the  execution 
of  great  projects  for  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  the  people  ;  and 

41 


Whereas :  The  residence  in  the  American  Metropolis  of  a  vast 

cosmopolitan  population  should  make  her  especially  solicitous 
to  impress  that  population  with  the  grandeur  of  American  char- 
acter and  the  splendor  of  American  achievements ;  and  more- 
over, the  women  of  New  York  have  never  before  asked  any 
costly  gift  from  the  City  and  State  authorities;  therefore  be  it 

Resolved :  That  the  Honorable  Legislative  Bodies  and  Com- 
mittees, Executive  Authorities  and  Determining  Boards  of  the 
City  and  State  of  New  York,  be,  and  they  hereby  are,  earnestly 
petitioned  by  the  undersigned  to  exercise  their  respective  powers 
for  the  purchase,  by  special  enactment,  of  Fraunces'  Tavern,  the 
Morris  Mansion  and  the  Poe  Cottage,  together  with  the  blocks 
of  land  on  which  they  stand,  as  memorials  due  from  this  chief 
City  and  State  to  the  chief  Founder  and  First  President  of  the 
United  States— the  ideal  citizen,  patriot,  soldier  and  statesman, 
GEORGE  WASHINGTON—  '  first  in  peace,  first  in  war,  first 
in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,"  and  to  the  marvellously  gifted 
Edgar  Allen  Poe,  long  since  ranked  by  Continental  nations  as 
the  greatest  American  poet ;  and 

Resolved:  That  the  authorities  before-mentioned  are  here- 
by further  petitioned  to  designate  the  Park  around  Fraunces' 
Tavern  as  "Patriots  Park,"  that  around  the  Morris  Mansion  as 
"Hero  Park,"  and  that  around  the  Poe  Cottage  as  "Poet's 
Park,"  and  to  commit  the  said  three  memorial  buildings  to  the 
care  of  the  Society  for  the  Preservation  of  Historic  Places  and 
Objects;  and 

Resolved :  That  any  other  disposition  of  these  several  proper- 
ties will  be  a  desecration  of  their  sacred  associations,  grievous  to 
the  national  mind  and  heart,  and  inexcusable  in  the  great  and 
enormously  opulent  State  and  City  of  New  York. 

Very  respectfully,  your 


A 

Mrs.  Archibald  Alexander 

Castle  Point,  Hoboken,  N.J. 
Mrs.  Jos.  C.  Anderson,  Auburn,  N.Y 

Mrs.  James  Andrews  New  York 

Miss  Genevieve  K.  B.  Andrews 

New  York 


PETITIONERS. 
B 

Mrs.  William  Brookfield.  .New  York 

Mrs  Wm.  D.  Barbour   " 

Mrs.  H.  S.  Barnes  

Mrs.  James  H.  Benedict. .  " 

Mrs.  F.  H.  Bosworth  

Mrs.  James  A.  Blanchard  " 


42 


Mrs.  L.  A.  Bevin  New  York 

Mrs.  Alexander  J.  I.  Bradley 

New  Rochelle,  N.  Y. 
Mrs.  Wm.  T.  Blodgett. . . .  New  York 

Mrs.  Emil  L.  Boas   " 

Mrs.  Geo.  Pendleton  Bowler  11 
Mrs.  Geo.  Stephenson  Bixby  " 
Mrs.  John  Wm.  Boothby  .  " 
Mrs.  William  H.  Bliss. . . . 
Mrs.  Samuel  M.  Blatchford  " 
Miss  Edith  Harman  Brown  " 

Mrs.  David  S.  Brown   il 

Miss  Mary  Marshall  Butler 

Yonkers,  N.  Y. 

Mrs.  Heber  R.  Bishop  New  York 

Mrs.  Wilfrid  Buckley  .... 
Mrs.  Wm.  Allen  Butler,  Jr. 
Mrs.  John  W.  Brannan ...  44 
Mrs.  Robert  H.  Benson  . .  " 

C 

Mrs.  Andrew  Carnegie. .  .New  York 

Mrs.  John  G.  Carlisle   " 

Mrs.  C.  Vanderbilt  Cross  " 
Mrs.  Chas. Whitney  Carpenter11 

Mrs.  Angus  Cameron   " 

Mrs.  Walter  Lester  Carr.  " 

Mrs.  Wm  A.  Copp   " 

Mrs.  Alfred  Corning  Clark  " 
Mrs.  Henry  White  Cannon  " 
Mrs.  Frederic  Cromwell. .  " 

D 

Mrs.  Henry  F.  Dimock. .  .New  York 
Mrs.  Robert  W.  de  Forest 

Mrs.  H.  L.  G.  Deas  

Mrs.  Henry  Mills  Day   " 

Mrs.  Chas.  Avery  Doremus  " 

Mrs.  Horace  Clark  Du  Val  44 

Mrs.  William  G.  Davies  . .  " 

Mrs.  Frederic  S.  Dennis. .  44 

Mrs.  J.  B.  Dickson   " 

Judge  Noah  Davis   44 

E 

Mrs.  Samuel  M.  Evans  New  York 

Mrs.  Richard  A.  Elmer. . .  44 
Mrs.  Chas.  Atwood  Edwards  M 
Mrs.  Jesse  L.  Eddy   " 


F 

Mrs.  Nicholas  Fish  New  York 

Mrs.  Charles  R.  Flint   M 

Mrs.  Anson  R.  Flower   44 

A.  S.  Frissell,  Esq  

Mrs.  Wm  A.  Fraser   4' 

Mrs.  Orange  Ferriss   44 

G 

Mrs.  Frederic  Goodridge.New  York 
Mrs.  Richard  Henry  Greene  44 
Mrs.  Wm.  H.  Granbery.. .  44 

H 

Mrs.  Robert  Hoe  New  York 

Miss  Ruth  L.  Hoe   41 

Mrs.  Franklin  W.  Hopkins 

Brooklyn 

Mrs.  James  W.  Henning.New  York 
Mrs.  Virgil  P.  Humason 

Yonkers,  N.  Y. 
Mrs.  Wm.  Tod  Helmuth.  .New  York 

Mrs.  Esther  Herrman   44 

Mrs.  Margaret  B.  Harrison  44 

Mrs.  Colgate  Hoyt   44 

Mrs.  John  C.  Hazen 

Pelham  Manor,  N.  Y 
Mrs.  Archer  Huntington  .New  York 
Mrs.  George  A.  Helme  ...  44 

I 

Mrs.  C.  Oliver  Iselin, 

New  Rochelle,  N.  Y. 

J 

Mrs.  Charles  S.  Jenkins 

Newburg-on-the-Hudson 
Miss  Grace  Jenkins      4  4  44 
Mrs.  Adrian  Hoffman  Joline 

New  York 
Mrs.  D.  Willis  James   44 

K 

Mrs.  Anna  T.  E.  Kirtland 

East  Orange,  N.  J. 
Mrs.  Wm.  Frederick  King,New  York 
Mrs.  Walter  M.  Keck 

East  Orange,  N.  J. 
Mrs.  Wm.  Houston  Kenyon 

New  York 


43 


L 

Mrs.  James  Brown  Lord. .New  York 
Mrs.  Frank  C.  Loveland..  " 

Miss  Margaret  Lewis   " 

Mrs.  Charles  Russell  Lowell  " 
Mrs.  H.  J.  Luce  

M 

Mrs.  Levi  P.  Morton  New  York 

Mrs.  Leon  Marie   11 

Mrs.  F.  F.  Marbury  

Mrs.  Dave  Hennen  Morris 

Mrs.  John  C.  Marin  

Mrs.  H.  Courtney  Manning  " 
Mrs.  Payson  Merrill   " 

O 

Mrs.  B.  B.  Odell,  Jr. 

Executive  Mansion,  Albany,  N.  Y. 
Mrs.  Adolphe  Openhym.  .New  York 
Mrs.  Charles  E.  Orvis.  ..  11 

P 

Mrs.  James  E.  Pope 

East  Orange,  N.  J. 
Mrs.  Ralph  E.  Prime. Yon kers, N.  Y. 

Mrs.  J.  T.  Pultz  New  York 

Mrs.  Melusina  Fay  Peirce  " 

Mrs.  John  H.  Pell   

Mrs.  J.  W.  Pinchot  

Mrs.  R.  Burnside  Potter..  " 

Mrs.  Isaac  N.  Phelps   " 

Mrs.  James  Pedersen   M 

Mrs.  Isaac  S.  Piatt  

Q 

Mrs.  L.  G.  Quinlin   " 

R 

Mrs.  Wm.  Rhinelander. .  .New  York 
Mrs.  Washington  A.  Roebling 

Trenton,  N.  J. 
Mrs.  John  Francis  Ritter.New  York 
Mrs.  Geo.  H.  Robinson. . .  " 
Mrs.  George  A.  Robbins..  " 
Mrs.  James  Bronson  Reynolds" 

Miss  Robbins   " 

Miss  Charlotte  S.  Robinson  " 
Mrs.  Jules  Reynal   " 


S 

Mrs.  James  S.  Speyer  New  York 

Mrs.  John  S.  Sutphen   41 

Mrs.  John  S.  Sutphen,  Jr.  " 
Miss  Adeline  E.  Sutphen.  " 

Mrs.  Mason  A.  Stone   " 

Mrs.  Isaac  N.  Seligman  . .  " 
Mrs.  Charles  A.  Spofford.  " 

Miss  Mary  A.  Stimson   " 

Mrs.  R.  Stone   

Mrs.  Wm.  H.  Sage. ...  Albany,  N.  Y 
Mrs.  James  M.  Seymour 

East  Orange,  N.  J. 
Mrs.  William  E.  Stone 

Cambridge,  Mass. 
Mrs.  Anson  Phelps  Stokes 

New  York 
Mrs.  J.  Edward  Simmons  11 

Mrs.  Churles  D.  Sabin   M 

Mrs.  Frank  Sullivan  Smith  " 

Mrs.  William  T.  Schley.. 

Mrs.  William  M.  Spackman  11 

T 

Mrs.  VanCampen  Taylor,  New  York 
V 

Miss  Mary  Van  Buren  Vanderpoel 
New  York 

Mrs.  Henry  Villard  

Mrs.  Alexander  T.  Van  Nest  " 

W 

Mrs.  Stephen  V.  White. . . .  Brooklyn 
Mrs.  Edwin  H.  Wootton..New  York 
Mrs.  Edward  Emerson  Waters 

New  York 
Miss  Julia  Chester  Wells  M 
Mrs.  George  Waddington  " 
Mrs.  John  D.  Wing   " 

Z 

Mrs.  N.  Lansing  Zabriskie 

Aurora,  N.  Y 


44 


